This Town Doesn’t Need ‘Life Breathed Into It’…

I’m tempted to say ‘Change it into what..?’ but I think I already know the answer…

More than 40 recommendations have been made by a task group to breathe life into the town from 6pm to 9pm and stop it becoming a no-go area after 9pm.Ideas include an early warning scheme where police will warn pubs not to serve customers they have identified as having drunk too much already.

Another plan is to ban outdoor smoking areas from the streets and improve taxi marshalling in Head Street and Queen Street.

Now, I can see the sense in cracking down on unruly, rowdy drunks.

That is, after all, what we’d all prefer to see, rather than blanket bans and revision of the licensing laws. It’s sensible, and a proper use of council and police time.

But banning outdoor smoking..?

When was the last time a smoker made me fear for my life, or was sick on my shoes, or started a fight with another smoker?

Or stole some private property from a complete stranger? That seems to be something exclusively confined to the smokeophobes…

A report is to be presented to Colchester Council’s policy review and development panel on Wednesday, September 1.

Nick Barlow, chairman of the task group, said: “We get lots of people complaining about the town centre at night, so we were looking at what can be done to improve the experience.

“People think there are simple solutions, but it is quite a complex issue.”

His biggest desire is to see a cultural change with people taking part in all kinds of activities.

Mr Barlow added: “If we get a greater mix of people out for different reasons, it changes behaviour and makes people out drinking more conscious of their behaviour.”

Does it?

I think you’ll find that if you are prepared to get hammered and cause trouble, you’ll do it no matter who happens to be around…

And what other kinds of activities does he want to see to supposedly get ‘a greater mix of people’ in Colchester Town Centre at night? Anyone able to figure this out, because I certainly can’t!

It seems to me that what people want to do in Colchester is drink and smoke and get a taxi home. Why not try making that easier for them, rather than harder?

But we all know what this is. Just another front in the ongoing war against a perfectly legal activity, and moreover, one that brings in a great deal of tax revenue.

“With the decline of clerical power in the 18th century, a newkind of mentor emerged to fill the vacuum and capture the earof society. The secular intellectual might be deist, sceptic oratheist. But he was just as ready as any pontiff or presbyterto tell mankind how to conduct its affairs. He proclaimed, fromthe start, a special devotion to the interests of humanity and anevangelical duty to advance them by his teaching. He broughtto this self-appointed task a far more radical approach than hisclerical predecessors. He felt himself bound by no corpus ofrevealed religion. The collective wisdom of the past, the legacy oftradition, the prescriptive codes of ancestral experience existed tobe selectively followed or wholly rejected entirely as his own goodsense might decide. For the first time in human history, and withgrowing confidence and audacity, men arose to assert that theycould diagnose the ills of society and cure them with their ownunaided intellects: more, that they could devise formulae wherebynot merely the structure of society but the fundamental habits ofhuman beings could be transformed for the better. Unlike theirsacerdotal predecessors, they were not servants and interpretersof the gods but substitutes.”

The very councils that destroyed our town centres with their laughable 'cafe society' (gin palace creation) strategies, now want to reclaim the booze-vomit, cigarette stubbed, fast food polystyrene strewn areas as strolling parks for the middle classes?The answer so far has been to try to ban 'happy hours' and promotional offers, the latter a dire con and the former just a means to close down competition elsewhere by selling at cost. The laughable unit price costing has no effect in pubs, already selling well above it. I can't see my white van supplier likely to adhere to the policy either, though he will love the price increases in off-licences!I drink and smoke in order not to have to suffer Polly Toynbee and her ilk. The State is Nanny everywhere it should stay away from, and fails where we need it in job creation and management. Enough to make me want a drink with a fag. Latvia or Turkey for lunch?

It's obvious, they need to ban people from town centres. Without people the town centre would remain calm, quiet and free from all bad behaviour. There would be no vandalism, no litter and the Police would have much more time to carry out other duties.Job done!

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face, any one of those moves would be enough to kill the town stone dead at night, businesses would close and the neighbouring towns would pick up the custom.

Dont expect an uprising bythe hard men of Colchester,thelast time half a million of the locals upset the then WOP council in the 1st century AD they endedup with their blue warpaint blending with the shit running down their chariot wheels.They'lle end up with mummsy andher partner watching X Factorlicking a tube or two of 4X